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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25978933">'It's not like this with other people.'</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cm420/pseuds/Cm420'>Cm420</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Normal People (TV 2020), Normal People - Sally Rooney</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Love, Past Relationship(s), Romance, Secret Relationship, Sex, Vaginal Sex</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 11:07:59</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,783</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25978933</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cm420/pseuds/Cm420</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Based on the scene in Normal People episode 11 where Connell and Marianne have sex in the room where they first had sex years before. Written from both Marianne and Connell's perspective.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Marianne Sheridan/Connell Waldron</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>34</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Connell POV<br/>We are in my room again at my mums home. It has been years since our ‘affair’ in our final year of school. Years since we sat in this room discussing college plans and having sex. It was in this room she told me about the abuse she’d faced from her father as a child and it was where I told her I first loved her. <br/>It’s too hot and the sweat glistens on both our bodies. The football is on in the background but I’ve all but forgotten it. We both have ice lollies and she is at the other end of the bed sucking on it. I can’t help but remember how her lips had felt on me all that time ago. <br/>The mood has changed now. The atmosphere has got serious. I always thought Marianne and I didn’t need to talk cause we understood each other so well. Perhaps in reality I always knew we should talk, but didn’t cause I’m so bad at it. Maybe talking would have avoided a lot of the pain that has come to both of us. However, I know we are going to talk now. <br/>She’s asking about Helen and I don’t particularly want to talk about her.  Marianne says she’s been lonely her whole life and I agree saying ‘I know what you mean’. She says ‘You weren’t lonely when you were with Helen though were you?’ I am unsure if it is jealousy that has driven her to ask this question and I’m not quite sure what answer it is she  hopes to hear.  I reply honestly saying ‘ I dunno, sometimes.’ Her eyes look down. I think she likes knowing that I hadn’t been fully happy with Helen either. With other people I’d stop there, I’d say no more but not with Marianne she has this ability to draw more out of me. Draw more out of me than I ever would want to disclose to anyone else. So I continue and say ‘I didn’t feel totally myself with her all the time.’  There is silence for a moment  as if Marianne is considering what I’ve said and what it means. We both take a lick of our lollies. The lolly pops as it leaves her mouth. There is something so sensual in Marianne’s actions. I find it hard to know whether she does it on purpose. <br/>I’m thinking about how different Marianne and Helen are. How it was all the best parts of me that were compatible with Helen; my loyalty, my practical outlook on things, my desire to be thought of as a good guy. With Helen I never did find myself feeling shameful things or saying weird things during sex. But Marianne she was different. She made me feel like I was like her, that we had the same unnameable spiritual injury and that neither of us could ever fit into the world. <br/>As I’m thinking these things she scoots down the bed, wiggling her feet as she goes. I’d never looked at feet in a sexual way but there was something unmistakably sexual about the way she moved them. The way she bites her lips and smiles with her eyes whilst looking directly at me as she does it. Perhaps something she learned whilst we’d been apart.</p>
<p>Marianne POV<br/>We are here again. In Connell’s room, on Connell’s bed. I think of everything that has come in between the first time we sat here together and today. All the other men who had been where he first went. I thought of the pain both he and I had felt in the years that had passed. I wondered if it all could have been avoided if only we had handled things differently.  <br/>Every man I’d been with since Connell was an attempt for me to convince myself I could be happy with someone other than him. Perhaps it was an attempt to convince myself I didn’t need love, cause I hadn’t loved any of them. In fact I purposely picked men I couldn’t love, sometimes men who would hurt me. Men I could secretly hate in my heart. Sex was only an act with them. Sex was an act with them. <br/>I’d put on a show and because it was a show I could convince myself they had no hold on me, that they took nothing from me. I’d give a man exactly what he wanted. Shy and innocent or confident and slutty, dominant or submissive. I could read a man and his needs like a book. However, sex with Connell never felt like reading, it was more natural than that. It felt as if we were creating a story together, with other men it had felt like I was trying to become part of their story and that had made it feel like fiction.<br/> Mostly I found men who wanted to hurt me. I needed those guises for a sexual experience with those men. I needed a kink, their kink, to cover up how empty the sex was, how meaningless it felt. <br/>I’m lying down now, lolly in mouth. I’m thinking about last night and how I thought I’d done something wrong to upset Connell. I decide to ask him, ‘Did I do something to annoy you?’ He looks confused and replies ‘Why do you say that?’ I explain about me feeling uncomfortable last night when he just left me alone and he just shrugs and says ‘Sorry, I wasn’t.’ <br/>Sometimes Connell is so hard to read and I think I’m probably better than most at reading him. His words can say one thing when he really feels another. He scratches his eyebrow and I know he wants to say more. Connell thinks before he speaks. Sometimes he thinks so long he doesn’t get the chance to say it. He clears his throat. He shuffles. He stutters ‘ I feel like… our friendship would be a lot easier… if like…err.. certain things were different.’ This could mean so many things. Things I want to hear, things I’d rather not. For a moment I consider not pushing him on it. Not asking him to expand but I cant help myself. I’d always rather know what is on his mind, no matter the cost to me or to our friendship. <br/>I ask him ‘What do you mean?’ I see the uncomfortable look come over him as he tries to piece together the right words. The right way to say things. He should know by now with me there is no wrong way to say things. <br/>Again he’s stuttering, ‘I don’t know, err, I think things would be a lot less confusing if there wasn’t like this other element to the relationship.’ The sentence is long and prolonged. He’s not looking at me. He’s staring but not at me. It’s like all his efforts and concentration has gone into getting those words out.  <br/>I’m lying on the bed staring up at the ceiling. I’m still not quite sure what he means, what it is he is getting at. You’d think being an English student he’d be articulate but he struggles when it comes to conversations like these.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Connell POV<br/>Marianne asks me if I was lonely when we were together in first year of college and this is something I don’t have to search my feelings for the answer. I know straight away how I felt when I was with Marianne. I answer ‘No.’ I feel like she’d like me to expand but the answer is simple I didn’t see the point in complicating it. There is silence for a moment again. I want to ask her if she felt the same. Perhaps I’m afraid I was alone in my contentment but I ask anyway, ‘Were you?’. I see Marianne swallow. She replies like me simply saying ‘No.’ However, unlike me she fills in the silence that comes after explaining she was ‘frustrated sometimes but not lonely.’ Perhaps that needed more expansion cause I’m not quite sure what she means by that. If I frustrated her, or our relationship. If she felt restricted or what it is she’s trying to tell me. <br/>But then she says ‘I’m never lonely when I’m with you.’ That was all I wanted and needed to know. I wanted her to convince me that her and I had something special that only we understood. However, perhaps the fact I’d always felt that had only held me back. I’d always felt she was the most beautiful thing that I’d ever felt, perhaps that I ever would. I’d convinced myself that I’d never have what we had had with anyone else. Perhaps that was limiting myself and my capabilities to love, and the capabilities of another to make me love them. Perhaps it only prepared me to spend a life settling because everything else would be synthetic in comparison to what we had shared. Perhaps I had convinced myself that no number of years, no amount of relationships could add up to the time I’d spent with Marianne. Perhaps that only meant I’d set every relationship up to fail. <br/>However, what was true and what had never changed was the fact she’s the only person in the world who I’d been with and never felt lonely. So I admit to Marianne saying ‘ that was kinda a perfect time in my life to be honest. I don’t really think I was ever really happy before then.’ I want to add that I’ve not really been happy since too but decide not to. Perhaps it’s too painful to admit to myself, let alone her that I have never been and can’t imagine being that happy without her. Perhaps because ultimately I’m not sure I can ever really have her. <br/>She’s quiet. She’s thinking. I wonder what’s on her mind. I hear her breathing. She bites her lip. I’m thinking about how beautiful she is. She opens her mouth to speak and closes it again. Then she tries again and gets the words out, ‘I really wanted you to kiss me last night.’ <br/>I look up at her, surprised. I’m annoyed at myself for not knowing, not taking my chance. At the same time my lips turn up into a half smile. She wanted me to kiss her. I scratch my face and close my eyes and say in my awkward way, ’I wanted to kiss you as well.. just like, err….’ I clear my throat, ‘ I guess we just misunderstood each other.’ I don’t think I’ve ever spoke anything more true than those words. Marianne and me as much as we understood each other had always found a way to miscommunicate our wants and our needs. Sometimes we thought we knew each other so well those things would be obvious to the other, but clearly that had not been the case. Then Marianne says ‘that’s okay.’ But this is different, there is a change in her voice, in her breathing. It’s laboured. I know she’s thinking about what I am. She’s thinking of kissing me. I see her chest lifting up and down as she lies at the other end of the bed. </p>
<p>Marianne POV<br/>I know where I want this conversation to go but I’m not quite sure it is going that way. We are talking but I don’t wonder if this is only highlighting our communication troubles. We have talked but I am no clearer on where I stand, where we stand. I’ve been here before, where I’ve spoke to Connell like this and we end the conversation with us both thinking we have made some progress but as time goes on we realise that the conversation had changed nothing at all. It only creates more uncertainty it often seems.<br/>Connell has scrunched up his face, he has his eyes closed and a hand over his face. ‘I don’t know what the best thing for us to do is’ he says. I see the conflict in him. The conflict between his desire and what he thinks is logical. He knows he wants me but we both know how having each other has ended in the past. He’s the only man that has placed our friendship above our sexual relationship. I know he values that more, and so do I. I don’t want to ruin that either just because we desire each other right now. <br/>He continues talking ‘like.. obviously its nice for me to hear you say this stuff but like.. at the same time things haven’t worked out well for us in the past.’ I close my eyes and take a deep breath. I want Connell so badly and yet it sounds like he is going to be sensible. I could seduce him, I could have him if I wanted to but I won’t. Perhaps his sense will be enough to protect the both of us. <br/>I’m lying there with my eyes still closed and he is still speaking . ‘You know you’re my best friend and I don’t want to lose that for any reason.’ I know he’s probably right and I allow myself to agree in a voice that gives my disappointment and pain away, ‘Yeah, I know what you mean.’ It’s the truth, I get it, but I never was any good at self-preservation.<br/>Connell has sensed my upset and is trying to soften the blow of rejection. ‘ I don’t want you to think I’m not appreciative or anything because you have been so supportive with me.. what with the depression and everything.’ The mention of his depression has him screwing up his face, an attempt to stop any visible signs of emotion. He trails a finger across his knee and stares at it, rather than having to look at me. He says ‘I don’t want to linger on that too much but really you have been a big help with that.’ <br/>The thing is with anyone but Connell helping him out like that might have felt like a burden, even a chore. Something I did to be kind and because it seemed the right thing to do but it was somehow different with Connell. Supporting him in that way came naturally. I didn’t think about how much I was doing to help him, I had just done it. So I tell him ‘You don’t owe me anything.’ I’m not sure if he told me that cause he felt bad for not giving me what I wanted when he felt like I’d given him so much. He’d given me as much, if not more in our friendship.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Connell POV</p><p>‘No, No I didn’t mean that’ I say as Marianne pushes herself up to a sitting position. Fuck, I’d said the wrong thing again. I just wanted her to know how much I appreciated her, I didn’t mean anything more or anything less. This is going badly. Marianne has her face in her hands now. I feel panic setting in, I hate fighting with Marianne. I’m not used to fighting with her. Perhaps it would be healthy if we fought more, I guess it means we are communicating. </p><p>‘Look, I’m getting anxious now’ I say as I move over towards her. ‘I don’t want you to think that I’m rejecting you or whatever.’ My heart is beating, I always have this fear that I might lose her again.  Marianne is so calm. Her faces shows no expression yet she says ‘Don’t be anxious, everything is fine.’ What does she mean? After all that has been said she wants to leave it at that? Everything is fine? Nothing seems fine now. Somethings gone wrong here. This isn’t how it was supposed to go. </p><p>She’s lifting herself off the bed. I don’t want her to go. Her tone is different, like she feels nothing at all as she says ‘ I think I might head home now, if that’s okay?’ Of course its not okay, I want her to stay but I cant say that. So I tell her that I’ll drop her off but she refuses. She says ‘You don’t want to miss the second half.’ Is she mad I don’t give a fuck about that right now. I don’t know what the mood is now. It feels tense, unnatural, uneasy. So unlike what I associate with being with Marianne. ‘I forgot there was a match on to be honest.’ I say. </p><p>She looks at the floor and walks a couple of steps so she is standing in front of me. She takes a deep breath and looks up and says ‘Okay.’ She shows a half smile, but its not natural but strained. She says ‘Bye.’ How could I have fucked this up so badly I wonder. I look up at her. Straight into her eyes. Pleading for her to understand, to not leave. I want her to soften up so we can merge like we always do into a space where I’ve only ever known with her. Where I feel like there is one person in the room when there is clearly two. Marianne can appear like this with other people, but not me. She can appear cold, distant, a bit bitchy. However, that's only her putting defences up, she'd never had them with me. </p><p>I put my hand out, I need to touch her. Then I’ll feel at peace knowing she welcomes me. I know physical touch between Marianne and I breaks all boundaries. It takes away awkwardness, fear or anger.  She places her hand in mine and I feel reassured that things will be okay. In that moment, my anxiety fades and nothing else matters but that us, Marianne and I, are going to be okay. I kiss her fingers bringing them up to my mouth. It seems like an innocent gesture to a woman I know is not innocent in the least. However, Marianne has just closed her eyes and bit her lip. I almost here a moan escape. She speaks ‘That’s nice.’ It brings me back to our first time, her first time all those years ago in this very same room when she uttered those words. She says it in exactly the same voice as she did then when I touched her for the first time. She’s nervous yet desperate for more. I thought a lot had changed, but perhaps some things never do.</p><p>But I’m nervous too, more so than I was the first time we had sex. Perhaps it’s because now we have so much more to lose. We are in this bubble now where I can tell her whatever is on my mind so I say, ‘I’m just really nervous, I think it’s obvious I don’t want you to leave.’ Her eyes open wide as if shocked by this revelation. Now she almost looks like she is away to cry and she says ‘I don’t find it obvious at all what it is you want.’ </p><p>Marianne POV</p><p>Those words almost bring me tears because I think we might not be in this mess if only I'd always known, and he'd always communicated what he had wanted. It hurts me because there is nothing I'd like more than to have clarity when it comes to my relationship with Connell. I like to believe I know Connell but at times I have no idea what it is he really wants or what he is thinking. Everything that came before in this conversation seemed to be telling me that he didn’t want me, but now he’s saying he does. He stands up and now he’s facing me. I hear him gulp. I’m desperate for him to kiss me. His hand is tentatively on my hip bone and I hear heavy breathing but I’m not sure if its his or mine. We are both leaning in. Then we kiss. I put my hand behind his neck as we kiss slowly but passionately. I break the kiss to say ‘I want this so much.’ He’s grins at that, almost laughs through his heavy breaths. ‘Its really nice to hear you say that..erm.’ That makes me smile. It’s such a Connell way to react. Any other man would pin me down to the bed and fuck me right there and then. But no Connell isn’t like that, he’s as slow to action as he is to speech. He even has the time to turn the football off before returning to sit by my side. </p><p>I want to speed this up so I slip my shoes off as he comes back to kiss me. We grab hold of each other as we do.  I move as we continue to kiss and lie down on the bed.  I remember lying down here the first time. It’s the same Connell, it’s the same me, but a different us. An us altered by experience and time. Our lips break and we both pant. I miss his lips already but he places them straight back onto  my neck. Then he stops again and I want to scream Connell hurry the fuck up but then he’s looking straight into my eyes and for a moment everything slows down. I remember where I am, and who I am with and I know there is no rush, there is no end goal, not with Connell, we can take our time. </p><p>He says ‘I’ve missed you.’ And the words make me want to cry. I know he means he’s missed sex with me but its not just having sex with me he has missed. He has missed that unexplainable connection and feeling of belonging you get when you have sex with someone who you feel this way about. It’s something I’ve not experienced with anyone else. It’s not about pleasure, or orgasm, or fantasy. It’s not about loneliness, or emptiness or self harm. That’s what sex has been like with other men but not with Connell. Sex with Connell has never hurt me. </p><p> I grab his face between my hands and stare into his eyes, ‘It’s not like this with other people.’ And he looks back and says ‘Well I like you a lot more than other people.’ We don’t need to talk anymore. We know what this is, there is no more to be said. I wish he'd said those words every day for the last three years but it doesn't matter, he has said them now. I start taking my top off and he does the same. We both start taking the rest of our clothes off, quickly. I’m so desperate to feel his naked body against mine again. I turn onto my front waiting for him to return.</p>
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